The top seven issues facing Antioch according to residents during a phone survey last fall.

Questions won’t be released until Special Council Workshop this Saturday, Jan. 20

By Allen Payton

Antioch City Manager Ron Bernal recently released the results of a taxpayer funded survey commissioned by his office last fall, which asked a variety of questions about issues such as police staffing and how to pay for it. The survey, conducted in October by the city’s public opinion firm Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, known as FM3 Research, was commissioned to assess resident perspectives on their quality of life, including community priorities and needs.

From October 18-24, 2017, FM3 completed 400 telephone interviews (on both landlines and cell phones) in English and Spanish with randomly selected likely November 2018 voters in the City of Antioch.

Referred to as a “Quality of Life community survey”, it shows Antioch residents want the City to do a better job improving public safety, and “maintaining and enhancing the community’s quality of life to reach the City’s full potential as a safe, clean, beautiful place to live,” according to the press release.

Mayor Sean Wright said he was not aware of the survey before it was done and paid for out of funds Bernal can use at his discretion.

Questions included asking residents if they would be willing to increase the current half-cent sales tax to a full one cent sales tax. While specific results for that question were not provided, the survey highlights (see below) show that 36% of respondents would definitely support a general sales tax measure, 27% would probably support it, and 4% were undecided but leaned toward yes in support of such a measure, for a total of 66% saying “yes” in some form. A general sales tax would only require a 50% plus one majority of voters to pass.

Main Highlights

The main results of the survey also show the following:

Public safety, homelessness and blight are seen as the biggest problems facing the City.

Seven in ten see a need for additional funding for services residents need and want.

Respondents were asked about several potential revenue measures, with a cannabis tax showing support over the needed threshold.

The most highly valued spending priorities of the proposed finance measure included public safety, water quality, financial stability and economic development.

“I want to thank everyone who took the time to participate in this study,” said City Manager Ron Bernal. “It is very important to our new City leadership team that we invest in every neighborhood in our City, to ensure that every resident receives quality service.”

Eighty-three percent of respondents also indicated maintaining Antioch’s financial stability was a top priority, with 70% agreeing that the City needs additional funding.

“I know the community continues to be concerned about crime in general, gangs and youth violence,” said Antioch Police Chief Tammany Brooks. “We must maintain 911 emergency response and increase investment in code enforcement.”

“This community feedback is extremely helpful. We want to continue to engage the public on these quality of life issues,” said City Manager Bernal. “These perspectives not only inform our City Council goal-setting, service delivery and budget planning, but help us to improve transparency and teamwork by making the community a true partner in our efforts to achieve government accountability, trust, safe neighborhoods and quality of life for all residents.”

“The Final Study including questions will be presented at the City Council Goal-Setting workshop on January 20th,” said FM3 Partner & COO Curtis Below. “FM3 will be there making the presentation and fielding questions from the Council.”

Overall, many shared concerns about crime, homelessness, blight and the economy locally – and seven in ten perceived a need for additional funding to provide services that residents need and deserve. Overwhelming majorities rated a variety of services as important to them personally, including public safety, water quality, financial stability, gang prevention, and economic development. Accordingly, asked about several potential revenue measures, a cannabis tax and a sales tax yielded support above their required vote thresholds.

Among the survey’s specific key findings were the following:

Public safety, homelessness and blight are seen as the biggest problems facing the City. When asked to rank a series of potential problems on a scale of “extremely serious,” “very serious,” “somewhat serious” or “not too serious,” 71 identified crime, in general as “extremely” or “very serious,” and 65 percent said the same for both homelessness and gangs and youth violence. Other issues seen as top problems involved blight and illegal dumping, an empty downtown, a lack of good-paying

Seven in ten see a need for additional funding for services residents need and want. Reflecting their perception of the seriousness of a variety of local challenges, a strong majority of respondents (70%) said that they see at least “some need” for additional City funding – and more than one-third (35%) see a “great need.”Respondents were asked about several potential revenue measures, with a cannabis tax showing support over the needed threshold. By contrast, a conceptual utility users tax, bond measure, and parcel tax each fell short of their required passage threshold. (EDITOR’s NOTE: The Council has voted to prevent any recreational marijuana/cannabis related businesses from operating or delivering their products in Antioch).

Two-thirds supported a potential general-purpose sales tax measure. In this survey, two-thirds (66%) of respondents expressed support for a potential sales tax measure, with more than one-third “definitely” voting yes. Fewer than half as many (30 percent) said they would vote “no” on the measure, with just 4 percent undecided. Such a measure would require a majority vote to pass.The most highly valued spending priorities of the proposed finance measure included public safety, water quality, financial stability and economic development. Survey respondents were asked to rank a series of proposed spending priorities and measure provisions in order of importance. As shown in Figure 5, respondents prioritized maintaining 911 emergency response and maintaining the number of police officers patrolling City streets most highly. In conclusion, the survey results suggest concerns about fundamental issues facing the City, such as crime, homelessness, and job opportunities. Most see at least some need for additional funding for the City to provide services residents need and deserve. At the same time, a strong majority appears open to supporting a local revenue measure, with maintenance of public safety services their highest priority for new funding.

Methodology: From October 18-24, 2017, FM3 completed 400 telephone interviews (on both landlines and cell phones) in English and Spanish with randomly selected likely November 2018 voters in the City of Antioch. The margin of sampling error for the study is ±4.9% at the 95% confidence level; margins of error for population subgroups within the sample will be higher (e.g., ±6.9% for half the sample). Due to rounding, not all totals will sum to 100%.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2018 at 11:25 pm and is filed under News, Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

C.S.
Thank you for reading the Herald and for taking the time to comment.
So, you think it’s OK to pay more taxes, and for the past mayor and council to have given another pay raise (on Election Night in 2016) to the police and the rest of city staff costing taxpayers $9.2 million, before the city has hired the remaining 13 or 14 of the 22 additional police we were promised if we passed Measure C?
I don’t.
Allen Payton, Publisher